And Add Lightness

Anti-clique

I understand there’s a tendency, when you’re part of a group, to circle the wagons try to keep a certain atmosphere from changing. People form cliques. It starts in kindergarten, if not earlier, and keeps on going until death, I suspect.

I don’t typically join clubs or groups. I have met some really cool people on forums, but the time I spend on such things is a fraction of my time. I just don’t want to be in an environment where cliques exist. I don’t have time for childishness.

When I first started taking photos of trains, I thought I might try to join the RailPictures.net community. I had questions about some of the criteria for submitting photos. But after a couple of automated messages, I was still unable to post questions.

Personally, I can see that I’ve improved in this area without the feedback of other people. I’m not suggesting that feedback from other photographers isn’t useful; but sometimes I feel a request for feedback is interpreted as an excuse to dump biases on the requestor. (That criticism isn’t leveled at any of the photographers here, by the way: you guys are all great).